Frantic – and famous for all of six seconds

It has been a most interesting month at work. Those of you who read my diary will know that the pace of work has been gradually increasing as we moved rapidly towards the opening of our new restaurants at John Lewis Southampton and High Wycombe.

John Lewis Southampton was the first to open. Closing the old waitress-service restaurant was a tearful event for customers and staff. Sales in our final week were greater than they had been for several years, as customers came to say farewell to the old restaurant.

As you can imagine, many customers used to waitress service vowed they would not set foot in the new "self-service" restaurant. But sure enough, on the first day, we were delighted to welcome many regulars, and I think they were suitably impressed.

In keeping with all new restaurant openings, we were swamped during the first week. But the great thing about working for the partnership is that everybody gets stuck in when help is needed.

At one point during the first Saturday we had two department managers working in the dishwash, the general manager clearing tables and numerous specialist helpers from all over the country trying to serve customers and clear tables as fast as possible.

The team in the kitchen were brilliant. They kept us well stocked with food, which is a considerable task when no one really knows how much we are going to sell of any particular item.

Five days later we opened the new customer restaurant and staff dining room at High Wycombe. This is a completely different operation from that at Southampton. It is more contemporary in its style and features a counter specially designed so that children can help themselves to a variety of different foods.

So far, the feedback from both younger and older customers has been good.

In between those five days I had an exciting but nerve-racking experience. I was interviewed live on Radio 4 on the demise of silver-service waitressing in department stores. Thank goodness I was only asked the day before, so I had only one sleepless night.

Anyhow, the big event came. I was sitting in front of the interviewer with the studio crew looking in and, precisely six seconds later, it was over. It was the most surreal experience I have ever had.

Caroline Mortimer is general manager, catering, for the John Lewis Partnership

Next diary from Caroline Mortimer: 16 November